Reader Comments and Retorts

Statements posted here are those of our readers and do not represent the BaseballThinkFactory. Names are provided by the poster and are not verified. We ask that posters follow our submission policy. Please report any inappropriate comments.

There is no 100% security for Jews in Isreal. There are 4 or 5 nations who can obliterate all the Jews there without an serious fear of equal repercussion (I'm not sayin' we wouldn't get our hair mussed...) - that is unless another major nuclear power is willing to launch in response for them. That doesn't sound SUPER secure to me.

Let's say Putin Jr. - or fascist France for that matter - just outright "decides" to end Israel. I mean - that is what Snapper is accusing the Arabs of WANTING TO DO if they only had the chance!
They lose a couple cities - maybe - I think a French Nuclear sub in the Med could obliterate all population centers in the entire middle east before anyone knew what was happening (ca. 6 minutes IIRC).

As a "race"* (har har) the Jews are best off dispersing across the globe (3rd diaspora? I lost count)-- although they would need significant enough density to avoid simply getting culturally diluted out of existence.

When the majority of Palestinians and their leaders stop wanting to wipe out Israel, then you can criticize the Israelis.

Ma! He hit me first, said the bigger brother. You do realize that the actions of the Israeli government makes the Palestianians (and allied arabs) that do want to wipe out Isreal makes them want to do it MORE?

The dumb thing was trying to deal in good faith with terrorists in the first place. It validated their belief that they can get what they want through intransigence. Compare this to Jordan's approach on the subject of relinquishing their territory to "Palestinians" based on their supposed territorial entitlement.

I doubt this is correct. You only have two options as the "big brother" in asymmetric warfare. Exterminate the opposition, or negotiate a settlement (there are a few exceptions -- say the Shining Path in Peru -- where the insurgencies don't have or lose the support of the group they are claiming to represent) The alternative is endless terrorism. I happen to think that at least some factions in Israel is empowered by Palestinian terrorism, so they don't really have a lot to gain from "solving" the problem.

It is true that Jordan (and possibly Syria) got lucky in that they had Israel with it's British Colonial roots as a lightning rod for Palestinian frustration.

* Of course I actually mean culture here, not genetics which is not really relevant to Judaism.

Are you kidding? If he did that, his entire schtick would evaporate in a blink.

If you have reasons to distinguish between "conservatives" and "modern conservatives," I'd be all ears.

The reasons to append "modern" to "liberal" are obvious. First and foremost, modern liberalism is quite illiberal. Secondly, there's been a sea change in liberal perceptions and descriptions of the world, as we saw in the Glanville discussion where we noted the descent from OJ liberalism to Zimmerman modern liberalism. White Democrats rejected the "alternative, holistic, deeper truths of race and class" narrative proffered in the OJ case in favor of what the evidence showed as much as white Republicans. In the Zimmerman case, they did exactly the opposite -- rejecting the evidence in favor of the "deeper truths."(*) Statistically insignificant spread between white Blues and white Reds in OJ; 43 point spread (!!!) in Zimmerman.

Liberalism has changed and its proponents have changed. The nomenclature to describe it and them should also change.

(*) That sea change is even more pronounced when we remind ourselves that the "deeper truths" narrative convinced the OJ jury.

Interesting speculations on the wind-power map. So perhaps the white/green divide represents a libertarian/authoritarian fault-line among otherwise fairly red states?

I'm no geographer and don't entirely understand why the South would be inhospitable to wind power. There is a vast timber belt across those states, though, and perhaps much of the suitable land is bound up in the timber industry, rather than being somewhat bare and scrubby as large parts of Texas and California can tend to be.

If you have reasons to distinguish between "conservatives" and "modern conservatives," I'd be all ears.

Liberalism has changed and its proponents have changed. The nomenclature to describe it and them should also change.

You don't often hear someone suggest that in the last few decades liberalism is on the march, while conservatism remains unchanged (though obviously if they lived up to their name that is what they would do).

Both sides have become more partisan (I think Team Red has gone further, but I admit to some bias there). Both sides have changed their stance on race since 1965 certainly. The reshuffling regarding race has driven much of the resorting and increased partisanship. It started with Kennedy (More RFK than JFK actually, from what I understand) and really got going with LBJ signing all those laws that got some folks worked up (Civil Rights, Voting Rights, you know the ones).

Both sides have also changed as a consequence of society changing and as fall out from the other changes. However suggesting one group has changed significantly and the other has remained true and solid is non-serious.

And it cannot be seriously argued that modern conservatives do not, with great frequency, use the canard of racial animus as a sword and a dodge.

...if you want to insert a "some" before "modern" in both sentences, then sure - I would accept both as true statements.

Are you kidding? If he did that, his entire schtick would evaporate in a blink.

The reasons to append "modern" to "liberal" are obvious. First and foremost, modern liberalism is quite illiberal. Secondly, there's been a sea change in liberal perceptions and descriptions of the world, as we saw in the Glanville discussion where we discussed the descent from OJ liberalism to Zimmerman modern liberalism. White Democrats rejected the "alternative, holistic, deeper truths of race and class" narrative proffered in the OJ case in favor of what the evidence showed as much as white Republicans. In the Zimmerman case, they did exactly the opposite -- rejecting the evidence in favor of the "deeper truths."(*) Statistically insignificant spread between white Blues and white Reds in OJ; 43 point spread (!!!) in Zimmerman.

Liberalism has changed and its proponents have changed. The nomenclature to describe it and them should also change.

First, you've combined so many elements into one patented catchphrase that the catchphrase is meaningless, unless you account for the fact that many people may be "modern liberal" (according to your definition) in some areas, "old fashioned liberal" (whatever that means) in other areas, and downright libertarian or conservative in others.

Or alternately, you could just follow zonk's suggestion and add "some" to your catchphrase. But then your silly little schtick (sorry, Gonfalon) would dissolve, and you'd actually have to name names, acknowledge a few nuances, and be specific in your charges. Fat chance of that ever happening.

I'm no geographer and don't entirely understand why the South would be inhospitable to wind power.

When I lived in central Virginia, I looked in to putting up a small windmill. But the band of coastal plain that stretches from Richmond to Montgomery has the worst wind index in the country (except for the immediate offshore areas). North Dakota (as though they need any more energy resources) is the best of the large swaths of places (not counting mountain passes or immediate shoreline areas). See map below:

I'm often struck by the way that the current Supreme Court seems to consist of rigid and unevolving thinkers. It seems like SC justices are now inevitably ideologues chosen by one party or another and wholly predictable thereafter. But within pretty recent memory there were Republican appointees who veered fairly liberal (from Warren through Stevens to Souter) and Democrats who veered strongly conservative (White). That era seems to be over.

That map fits my memories of Saskatchewan. The only real sky-scrapers in town were these twin towers beside one another. It was like a jet engine test facility wind tunnel walking between them. The prairies seem lousy with wind.

Not as much as you'd think, with the exception of the original neocons who felt under attack by the black power rhetoric of the late 60's, and in particular by some of that movement's anti-semitic rhetoric. But beyond that, the same political lines that largely favored the civil rights bills of 1964-65 are pretty much the same ones that are on the "liberal" side of issues like the Glanville case today. And the political side that sees "race baiting" at every opportunity" is almost the direct descendants of the side that in 1964 was saying that the civil rights bill would give blacks "special privileges".

You'll also note that of the surviving conservative supporters of that 1964 bill, few of them take up the cry of "modern" conservatives vis-a-vis things like racial profiling and the extension of the Voting Rights Act. The ones opposing the "modern" liberals on those issues are for the most part the descendants of the Rehnquists and Thurmonds of that earlier era, and today throwing around the tried and tested "RINO" label against the Old School types. The "old school" conservatives like Bob Dole are strongly against this "modern" version of conservatism, and have spoken out in favor of measures like extending the Voting Rights Act.

I'm often struck by the way that the current Supreme Court seems to consist of rigid and unevolving thinkers. It seems like SC justices are now inevitably ideologues chosen by one party or another and wholly predictable thereafter. But within pretty recent memory there were Republican appointees who veered fairly liberal (from Warren through Stevens to Souter) and Democrats who veered strongly conservative (White). That era seems to be over.

There used to be liberal Republican Congresman and conservative Democratic Congressman too. The ideologies have sorted themselves into parties the last few decades. Its interesting they formed the allegiances they did though (anti-governments with social conservatives against pro-governments with social liberals). I wonder what things would be like if the small government types had aligned with the social liberals (which seems like a more natural ally in theory although perhaps not in practice) and the pro-government types had aligned with social conservatives. And that's not even getting into hawks and doves.

If they only hire a new officer after +500 in population growth but the 500th person never moves to town, there was no marginal cost to persons 1 through 499. Thanks for recapping the point I made multiple prior times.

You have never dealt with staffing, clearly. And never taken an economics course. You should get yourself an education young man, it will do you a world of good.

Since you (oddly) brought this up again in #2420, please explain how the italicized part above is wrong, how one additional person moving into Manhattan does incur a marginal cost on the NYPD, and how that person has "staffing" implications for the NYPD (despite the fact the NYPD only hires an additional officer every +500 residents). Thanks in advance for the "education."

And I do play poker, have for years. I am slightly above average (my problem is I get bored and want to play a hand and do, even when I should fold).

He has been presented with counter evidence and counter argument again and again, by people who actually do genetics for a living, yet his need to cling to his anti-Cathedral "realist" stance endures

I don't think you've been paying close attention to what that guy's been saying then. Furthermore, I have probably provided (and had it be summarily dismissed with a handwave) more scientific sourcing for my claims than the rest of this board put together. Don't project your unwillingness to consider evidence that's contrary to your preferred narratives onto me.

And here also, I don't think it's due to deeply held racial animus, it's just that he's so invested in being an iconoclast "outside the Cathedral" that he refuses to listen to basic science and reason if it comes from "modern liberals." And here also, I don't think it's due to deeply held racial animus, it's just that he's so invested in being an iconoclast "outside the Cathedral" that he refuses to listen to basic science and reason if it comes from "modern liberals."

First of all, the "modern liberals" thing is SBB's deal, not mine. I do loathe the left, not because I'm posturing for some sort of narcissistic ideological fashion show (there's that projection on your part again), but because I think they are damaging civilization.

But with that said, SBB's post @2488 overrides all of that subtlety of meaning and intent and buries it in a tidal wave of actual real world consequence. And again, this is something TGF is simply uninterested in dealing with.

SBB's 2488 assumes its conclusions, which explains why you like it.

And again, this is something TGF is simply uninterested in dealing with. He's too invested in his crusade against the "modern liberal" to be worried that he's giving aid and succor to actual virulent racists in the world.

I am concerned about the truth; about gaining the best and most complete understanding of reality possible. You're making an Appeal to Consequences fallacy, and I hold no truck with such nonsense. Sometimes the world is brutal and ugly. And I understand the urge to shelter oneself and others from its millions of grinning teeth. But we are not children and we do ourselves (and our actual children) no favors by hiding beneath the covers, piling hypocrisy upon hypocrisy to avoid looking upon terrible things.

I don't think you've been paying close attention to what that guy's been saying then. Furthermore, I have probably provided (and had it be summarily dismissed with a handwave) more scientific sourcing for my claims than the rest of this board put together. Don't project your unwillingness to consider evidence that's contrary to your preferred narratives onto me.

What I don't understand is how you, or anyone, claim to parse racial differences in academic achievement from cultural ones?

I believe Jews excel academically, because they have a culture that has stressed academic achievement for 1950 years. Likewise, Asian immigrants to this country have come to share a similar cultural "obsession". That seems a far more likely reason for success than some genetic component.

I don't think you've been paying close attention to what that guy's been saying then.

I don't think you're in any position to effectively argue as much. We're all aware of the fact that you THINK you're just doing the hard work of racial realism, but the data you cite in support of your "facts" don't support your facts, are poorly sourced and tagged, and you can't so much as define a real scientific method by which to get to your argument, much less your conclusions. But you keep repeating the bad data and end-around begging of questions repeatedly, because you think it's clever.

Furthermore, I have probably provided (and had it be summarily dismissed with a handwave) more scientific sourcing for my claims than the rest of this board put together.

Numerous people have countered your "scientific sourcing" numerous times. You handwave them away, because its inconvenient for your conclusions that your assumed data are wrong.

What I don't understand is how you, or anyone, claim to parse racial differences in academic achievement from cultural ones?

I believe Jews excel academically, because they have a culture that has stressed academic achievement for 1950 years. Likewise, Asian immigrants to this country have come to share a similar cultural "obsession". That seems a far more likely reason for success than some genetic component.

I haven't followed this discussion or the larger IQ/race debate closely at all, but it seems borderline absurd to assume that evolution and genetics have impacted every aspect of humanity except intelligence.

I haven't followed this discussion or the overall IQ/race debate closely at all, but I find it almost impossible to believe that evolution and genetics have impacted almost every aspect of humanity except intelligence.

There really aren't many evolutionary differences between ethnic groups of modern humans. That's sort of the point.

There used to be liberal Republican Congresman and conservative Democratic Congressman too

Yes, indeed. I guess part of what I find "new" about the Supreme Court is that there used to be Justices appointed by one party in the general expectation that they would support that party line, but then in the course of their evolving thought those Justices went, if not 180, at least a substantial tack the opposite way. Seems like anymore, a Justice once appointed is as ideologically stable as a big old rock.

If they only hire a new officer after +500 in population growth but the 500th person never moves to town, there was no marginal cost to persons 1 through 499. Thanks for recapping the point I made multiple prior times.

Since you (oddly) brought this up again in #2420, please explain how the italicized part above is wrong, how one additional person moving into Manhattan does incur a marginal cost on the NYPD, and how that person has "staffing" implications for the NYPD (despite the fact the NYPD only hires an additional officer every +500 residents). Thanks in advance for the "education."

Fine. If you insist.

I don't want to recap all of #1841, so the it is an assignment for the class to go back and read it. The central paragraphes are ...

So let's assume 2 officers per 1,000 people in a city. To make the math easy. Now let's assume with salary, benefits, training and equipment it costs $100,000 per officer (also to make the math easy).

So when a city gains a person, they don't hire a new 2/1000 of an officer. However every five hundred or so people they hire an officer. This costs $100,000/year. So the marginal cost of each new person in the city is NOT zero for 499 and then $100,000 for the last one, instead it is $200 per person.

Now Joe K seems to want the marginal cost to only apply on the last person. But that is not how marginal cost works. Marginal cost applies to every one, not just the last one. Let's zoom on over to Wikipedia. Please ignore or skip past the college level math if you want, the key paragraph is midway through "Cost functions and relationship to average cost":

Marginal cost is not the cost of producing the "next" or "last" unit.[2] As Silberberg and Suen note, the cost of the last unit is the same as the cost of the first unit and every other unit.

So the marginal cost associated with all 500 people moving into the city is the same, by the definition of marginal cost. So all 500 people moving in have a marginal cost of $200 from a police perspective. In fact every person in the city has the same marginal cost. And if something changes the cost of policing (drones or cell phones or whatever) the marginal cost changes for everyone, not just new people entering the city.

In fact if the city never gets the 500th person it is irrelevant, in fact it doesn't matter if the city decides to go from 2 per 1,000 to 1.5 per thousand. There is still a marginal cost associated with additional policing and that cost is assigned to each and every person equally (again by definition) no matter when they arrive or if any new officers are hired. And yes the marginal cost can decrease or increase (for example because of a change in technology or whatever) and the new marginal cost is associated to each person as the costs change,whether or not the cost is incurred right now or not.

Marginal cost is an economic concept, a bit like public goods. They are concepts used for modeling economies, both micro and macro. You actually have to study, learn, the concepts in order to apply them correctly. I am not sure why this is the hill you decided to fight upon, but whatever. It was nice to look over the definitions again, refresh myself on the various bits I had forgotten (be reminded that my calculus is rusty but not totally gone) and so on.

I haven't followed this discussion or the larger IQ/race debate closely at all, but it seems borderline absurd to assume that evolution and genetics have impacted every aspect of humanity except intelligence.

If there's one thing that should be amply clear by now, it's that leftists are not interested in truth; never have been. They're interested in what SHOULD be true. And when their wishes founder on the hard shores of reality as they so often do, this doesn't deter them at all. It's just evidence that the world is evil (usually due to stuff non-leftists have done) and they require ever more power to remake things as they wish them. Rinse, repeat.

Yes, indeed. I guess part of what I find "new" about the Supreme Court is that there used to be Justices appointed by one party in the general expectation that they would support that party line, but then in the course of their evolving thought those Justices went, if not 180, at least a substantial tack the opposite way. Seems like anymore, a Justice once appointed is as ideologically stable as a big old rock.

Which is odd, considering the hyper-partisanship and use of cloture in the Senate now. You'd think that would force nearly every candidate to be very middle-of-the road because you have to get 60 Senate votes now. I wonder if that will be the trend going forward, I can't see Obama's next appointment if he has one being that liberal.

Someone asked earlier in this thread how Obama gets a SCOTUS nominee through at all. I wonder if Hillary Clinton, if she wanted it (was tired of running for office, thought this might be a more enduring legacy, no more petty politics) would sail through. She earned respect from GOP Senators when she served, and the GOP might see it as a strategic way to remove her from the 2016 race.

There is no real evidence that genetics has modified the human animal between ethnic groups to the extent that it they would control for anything more complex than the occasional skin tone. Part of the problem is that TGF is attributing to genetics things that are far too complex to be reduced to genetics.

Further, whatever levers once existed in the natural world to create disparate selections between human sub-groups has disappeared almost entirely. Very few individuals live in the deep rain forests anymore.

Now Joe K seems to want the marginal cost to only apply on the last person. But that is not how marginal cost works. Marginal cost applies to every one, not just the last one. Let's zoom on over to Wikipedia. Please ignore or skip past the college level math if you want, the key paragraph is midway through "Cost functions and relationship to average cost":
Marginal cost is not the cost of producing the "next" or "last" unit.[2] As Silberberg and Suen note, the cost of the last unit is the same as the cost of the first unit and every other unit.

So the marginal cost associated with all 500 people moving into the city is the same, by the definition of marginal cost. So all 500 people moving in have a marginal cost of $200 from a police perspective. In fact every person in the city has the same marginal cost. And if something changes the cost of policing (drones or cell phones or whatever) the marginal cost changes for everyone, not just new people entering the city.

In fact if the city never gets the 500th person it is irrelevant, in fact it doesn't matter if the city decides to go from 2 per 1,000 to 1.5 per thousand. There is still a marginal cost associated with additional policing and that cost is assigned to each and every person equally (again by definition) no matter when they arrive or if any new officers are hired. And yes the marginal cost can decrease or increase (for example because of a change in technology or whatever) and the new marginal cost is associated to each person as the costs change,whether or not the cost is incurred right now or not.

Marginal cost is an economic concept, a bit like public goods. They are concepts used for modeling economies, both micro and macro. You actually have to study, learn, the concepts in order to apply them correctly. I am not sure why this is the hill you decided to fight upon, but whatever. It was nice to look over the definitions again, refresh myself on the various bits I had forgotten (be reminded that my calculus is rusty but not totally gone) and so on.

This is just the old Bitter Mouse tactic of using a lot of words and some jargon to not say much of anything. (He also misrepresented my position; I've never claimed that "marginal cost is the cost of producing the 'last' unit"; I've simply pointed out that if a triggering event never occurs — e.g., the arrival of the 500th new resident in a place that only hires a new police officer every +500 residents — then there's no "cost" at all, marginal or not.)

If a city only hires a new police officer after gaining 500 residents, and the 500th person never arrives, then there was no marginal cost to persons 1 through 499. Likewise, if 500 people move to town and the city decides not to hire an additional officer after all, but, rather, to increase the ratio of residents to police, there was no marginal cost to that, either (contrary to your odd claim above).

This is just the old Bitter Mouse tactic of using a lot of words and some jargon to not say much of anything.

Yeah crazy me wanting to use definitions and actual concepts every college economics student learns in first year econ. Dude every single person has the same marginal cost. Every single one. No matter if they change police staffing or not. By definition.

I realize you don't get it. You may never get it. I can't make you understand, you can't make someone understand something they have a stake in not understanding.

EDIT: And you did specifically ask for an explanation, so this is on you and not me.

considering the hyper-partisanship and use of cloture in the Senate now. You'd think that would force nearly every candidate to be very middle-of-the road

Two things occur to me. One is that indeed, the Democratic nominees aren't very radically left-wing. Yet they do vote very reliably on lots of social issues, and presumably would form an immovable bloc if Roe v. Wade were ever radically challenged. Second, the confirmation process has become very bland. Everyone knows that the candidates are going to faithfully represent their parties, but they don't really comment on issues (citing the nostrum that they can't comment on what might come before the Court, which is everything). The slightest Borky move by a nominee is grounds for a ####storm; Sotomayor couldn't even have her little "wise Latina" moment without handwringing of monumental proportions. So the nominees really don't get a huge amount of scrutiny or challenge; I guess each side figures it'll be their turn next.

I wonder if Hillary Clinton, if she wanted it (was tired of running for office, thought this might be a more enduring legacy, no more petty politics) would sail through. She earned respect from GOP Senators when she served, and the GOP might see it as a strategic way to remove her from the 2016 race.

Not that you're expecting this scenario to happen, but it wouldn't these days. The last several justices' ages at confirmation:

Yeah crazy me wanting to use definitions and actual concepts every college economics student learns in first year econ. Dude every single person has the same marginal cost. Every single one. No matter if they change police staffing or not. By definition.

I realize you don't get it. You may never get it. I can't make you understand, you can't make someone understand something they have a stake in not understanding.

If a town has 500 residents and one police officer, and then 200 additional people move to town and the town doesn't hire another officer, how in the world did those 200 new people incur a marginal cost on the town's police department? They didn't. You seem to be calculating and then recalculating marginal cost retroactively, which is bizarre.

There is no real evidence that genetics has modified the human animal between ethnic groups to the extent that it they would control for anything more complex than the occasional skin tone. Part of the problem is that TGF is attributing to genetics things that are far too complex to be reduced to genetics.

Further, whatever levers once existed in the natural world to create disparate selections between human sub-groups has disappeared almost entirely. Very few individuals live in the deep rain forests anymore.

And whatever genetic difference there may be are swamped by far more vast cultural differences.

And whatever genetic difference there may be are swamped by far more vast cultural differences.

Perhaps, but doesn't this somewhat imply a chicken-and-egg scenario, though? That is, does intelligence follow from culture, or does culture follow from intelligence?

I'm not saying there's a direct cause/effect in either direction, but I'd bet there's a strong general factor in play. If we ranked places by culture and then again by intelligence, I bet the lists would look quite similar.

If a town has 500 residents and one police officer, and then 200 additional people move to town and the town doesn't hire another officer, how in the world did those 200 new people incur a marginal cost on the town? They didn't.

That's right. That's why all successful towns have millions of people and one cop.

One thing we sometimes forget in our nominally meritocratic culture – maybe especially those of us who see a big difference between a .270 and a .220 hitter – is that barring actual retardation, the functional differences in intelligence among humans are minimal, and compared to other animals, humans are incredibly intelligent. Even the biggest dumb### you know is a pretty gifted individual who can drive in traffic, hold a job, express aesthetic opinions, solve problems, use tools.

The human propensity to draw arbitrary rank distinctions creates big differences in social reward between engineers and folks like me who passed college calculus with a C. But in the scheme of the universe that's like the 9.9 sprinter and the 10.1. SFW, basically.

And this is entirely apart from establishing whether people of a given skin color can sprint a step faster or pass Differential Equations with an A, which is a dubious proposition on top of that.

I'm echoing a little what Bear said in #2488, which strikes me as a very good point.

If a town has 500 residents and one police officer, and then 200 additional people move to town and the town doesn't hire another officer, how in the world did those 200 new people incur a marginal cost on the town? They didn't. You seem to be calculating and then recalculating marginal cost retroactively, which is bizarre.

Marginal cost is not something incurred, it just is. In your example the town has decided to reduce its "police coverage". Which is fine. But at the new level of coverage there is still a marginal cost for each person in town based on the new police ratio and the costs of maintaining it. The town will not pay the marginal cost, they will pay the actual financial cost, different concepts.

Too many people were not sure she was a True Conservative. At least according to Toobin's book that was the deal breaker.

Too bad then. She would have been preferable to Alito.

The guy we have to get rid of is Scalia though. he's at the root of the gu and PAC rulings. It's like, he takes a poll of what conservatives want, then rationalizes some excuse to rule that way. He's the John C. Calhoun of the Supreme Court.

I thought it was as much too many people were quite sure she was a lightweight and pure crony appointment as this.

Spike, that explains whe Democrats didn't like her. But if Republicans got behind her, they might have been able to push her through. But it turned out conservative republicans didn't think she was worth the effort and her candidacy folded pretty quickly.

#2544 And that's what somebody like DMN would say (has said). Toobin's book has a lot of gossip in it (often unsourced) and she didn't do well in her public appearances, but she couldn't get the team behind her because (at least according to Toobin) they didn't believe she was one of them.

I'm echoing a little what Bear said in #2488, which strikes me as a very good point.

It was mostly only a good point if one is uncomfortable with the possible results of further study and looking for a way to shelve the topic.

Sites like this go to extreme lengths to discuss not only the difference in value between a ".270 and a .220 hitter," but the differences between two .270 hitters. Why people are so squeamish about studying the differences that exist, or might exist, in the entirety of humanity is, as Ray might say, left as an exercise for the reader.

Doesn't this somewhat imply a chicken-and-egg scenario, though? That is, does intelligence follow from culture, or does culture follow from intelligence?

I'm not saying there's a direct cause/effect in either direction, but I'd bet there's a strong general factor in play.

The vast majority of human evolution occurred in conditions completely dissimilar to the last 5,000 years. Up until 100 years ago, the vast majority of humans were subsistence farmers. I would say there is virtually no scope for minor differences in average intelligence (The ~5 pts. of IQ GF is observing) to have had any meaningful effect on anything.

The Jewish emphasis on education was a historical fluke, caused by the destruction of the 2nd temple, the diaspora, and the shift from sacrificial, temple Judaism, to rabbinical Judaism. Nobody observed 1st century BC Jewish pastoralists being smarter than 1st century BC Phoenician pastoralists. Nobody thought Asians were particularly brilliant until a small subset of them started excelling in a modern Western culture.

Meanwhile, the Irish had many of the same problems that the black underclass has experienced, when uprooted from a rural, subsistence agricultural society, to eastern US cities in the 1840's. Their experience was very similar to blacks moving from a sharecropping, subsistence farming society to the large US cities in the 1930s-60s. As Irish culture changed and adapted (big hat tip to Bishop "Dagger" John Hughes), those socio-economic problems dissipated. Italians and Jews coming from far more urbanized societies, later in the 19th and 20th centuries didn't suffer nearly the same problems.

By far the most likely explanation for modern academic over/under performance, and presence or lack of social ills, among some groups is a culture particularly suited or unsuited to a modern, urban economy.

Marginal cost is not something incurred, it just is. In your example the town has decided to reduce its "police coverage". Which is fine. But at the new level of coverage there is still a marginal cost for each person in town based on the new police ratio and the costs of maintaining it. The town will not pay the marginal cost, they will pay the actual financial cost, different concepts.

That's the entire point of marginal cost vis-a-vis a public good: Once a town pays $x for a police officer and $y for a police car and $z for a police station, it doesn't cost any more if one additional person moves into town.

Why some folks insist on it being "squeamish" when mostly we are saying, "No, you are flat wrong" is the real question. We are saying that because you are wrong, not because we are squeamish. Say something less wrong and you will find us less "squeamish".

That's the entire point of marginal cost vis-a-vis a public good: Once a town pays $x for a police officer and $y for a police car and $z for a police station, it doesn't cost any more if one additional person moves into town.

Sigh. No. The point is, by definition something can't be a public good if it has a non-zero marginal cost. Technically both non-excludable and non-rivalrous. Anyway just because you get something for free (in this case you got a free policing coupon) does not mean it is suddenly a public good, any more that McDonald's free coffee giveaway made coffee suddenly a Public Good. It has to always have a zero marginal cost. Lighthouses are not more expensive (you don't need more of them and they don't cost more to operate) if there are more ships using it. GPS satellites don't cost more as more people buy GPS systems. But policing CAN cost more, it has a positive marginal cost (whether incurred or not) and so policing is not a public good.

Policing also fails on being non-excludable. Not that it is always excludable, but it can be excluded, and certainly has been in the past (and I would argue is today to a lesser degree). And since is can be excluded it is not a public good.

That's because we'd be self-selecting for the rankings in both lists. All those lists will show us is what we self-select for.

If a culture/intelligence link can't be confirmed, then it seems we'd have to toss the "culture" claim out the window, just as some here have been demanding we do with The Good Face's genetics claim (despite Good Face presenting some actual evidence to support his claims).

***

Why some folks insist on it being "squeamish" when mostly we are saying, "No, you are flat wrong" is the real question. We are saying that because you are wrong, not because we are squeamish. Say something less wrong and you will find us less "squeamish".

You're saying plenty of things, but not presenting much, if any, evidence to support them. The apparent desire to not even pursue such evidence indicates much squeamishness.

Sigh. No. The point is, by definition something can't be a public good if it has a non-zero marginal cost. Technically both non-excludable and non-rivalrous. Anyway just because you get something for free (in this case you got a free policing coupon) does not mean it is suddenly a public good, any more that McDonald's free coffee giveaway made coffee suddenly a Public Good.

Absurd example. The "free" McDonald's coffee actually cost McDonald's money. The "free" policing I enjoyed when I had dinner in a neighboring town last night cost that municipality $0.

If a culture/intelligence link can't be confirmed, then it seems we'd have to toss the "culture" claim out the window, just as some here have been demanding we do with The Good Face's genetics claim (despite Good Face presenting some actual evidence to support his claims).

You're almost there. The first thing you need to toss out the window is your casual assumption of "intelligence" as a measurable, static value. Then get rid of your notion of "culture" as something similar. Now throw out the hackeneyed concept of "race" as defined by skin tone. At that point, when you understand the utterly consuming fog of indistinction at the heart of the question, we can perhaps begin.

You're almost there. The first thing you need to toss out the window is your casual assumption of "intelligence" as a measurable, static value. Then get rid of your notion of "culture" as something similar. Now throw out the hackeneyed concept of "race" as defined by skin tone. At that point, when you understand the utterly consuming fog of indistinction at the heart of the question, we can perhaps begin.

The "free" policing I enjoyed when I had dinner in a neighboring town last night cost that municipality $0.

You are still confusing marginal cost with financial cost. Financial costs are incurred (and hopefully paid). Marginal costs exist as an abstract attribute that describes an aspect of that thing*. They are not the same, even though they both have the word COST in them.

* More "jargon", but mostly alliterative jargon. I tried for an A word with the same meaning as describe, but the closest I got was explicate.

I'm hoping one of Scalia, Thomas or Kennedy retires in the next year or two and replaced with a liberal judge, so we can strat undoing all the damage that has been wroguht the past few years. The country is trending progressive while the SC is trending revanchist. Very unstable situation. Hangover from the '80's.

The vast majority of human evolution occurred in conditions completely dissimilar to the last 5,000 years. Up until 100 years ago, the vast majority of humans were subsistence farmers. I would say there is virtually no scope for minor differences in average intelligence (The ~5 pts. of IQ GF is observing) to have had any meaningful effect on anything.

Just to clarify, the IQ gaps I've discussed are closer to 15 points, not 5. That's a significant number.

The Jewish emphasis on education was a historical fluke, caused by the destruction of the 2nd temple, the diaspora, and the shift from sacrificial, temple Judaism, to rabbinical Judaism. Nobody observed 1st century BC Jewish pastoralists being smarter than 1st century BC Phoenician pastoralists.

If that's the case, why do some groups of jews (ashkenazi) score much higher than other groups (sephardim)?

Nobody thought Asians were particularly brilliant until a small subset of them started excelling in a modern Western culture.

Wait, wat? Chinese intellectual history is pretty impressive, and plenty of Westerners commented to that effect well before the days of H1B visas and Tiger Moms. Japan too.

Meanwhile, the Irish had many of the same problems that the black underclass has experienced, when uprooted from a rural, subsistence agricultural society, to eastern US cities in the 1840's. Their experience was very similar to blacks moving from a sharecropping, subsistence farming society to the large US cities in the 1930s-60s. As Irish culture changed and adapted (big hat tip to Bishop "Dagger" John Hughes), those socio-economic problems dissipated. Italians and Jews coming from far more urbanized societies, later in the 19th and 20th centuries didn't suffer nearly the same problems.

The Irish suffered from chronic Irishness. It's fatal, but not serious.

By far the most likely explanation for modern academic over/under performance, and presence or lack of social ills, among some groups is a culture particularly suited or unsuited to a modern, urban economy.

Culture is pretty clearly important. Look at the UK, which managed to turn a mighty seafaring empire, renowned for it's boldness and industry, into a pack of trashy, drunken, violent, promiscuous, unemployable human garbage in 50 years or so, largely through government action. The ancestors of today's chavs were the workers, farmers, sailors, etc. who created and sustained the glory of the Victorian Age.

I'm hoping one of Scalia, Thomas or Kennedy retires in the next year or two and replaced with a liberal judge, so we can strat undoing all the damage that has been wroguht the past few years. The country is trending progressive while the SC is trending revanchist. Very unstable situation. Hangover from the '80's.

I'd like to see them replaced by a chimpanzee. Its amazing we've gone 200+ years with a Supreme Court, and not a single chimpanzee has served on the court.

Look at the UK, which managed to turn a mighty seafaring empire, renowned for it's boldness and industry, into a pack of trashy, drunken, violent, promiscuous, unemployable human garbage in 50 years or so, largely through government action. The ancestors of today's chavs were the workers, farmers, sailors, etc. who created and sustained the glory of the Victorian Age.

Yeah modern UK is so dystopian compared to the good old days. They live longer healthier lives and with more disposable income to spend on more and better toys, but they don't have GLORY to sustain them. I weep for them.

You're almost there. The first thing you need to toss out the window is your casual assumption of "intelligence" as a measurable, static value. Then get rid of your notion of "culture" as something similar. Now throw out the hackeneyed concept of "race" as defined by skin tone. At that point, when you understand the utterly consuming fog of indistinction at the heart of the question, we can perhaps begin.

Ha ha. And Sammy says he's not religious.

Truly the lord works in mysterious ways. We can't possibly hope to understand 'em, so best not to bother. Except when they can use "race" to advance leftist causes. Then it's OK.

You are still confusing marginal cost with financial cost. Financial costs are incurred (and hopefully paid). Marginal costs exist as an abstract attribute that describes an aspect of that thing*. They are not the same, even though they both have the word COST in them.

* More "jargon", but mostly alliterative jargon. I tried for an A word with the same meaning as describe, but the closest I got was explicate.

We're going nowhere on policing, so perhaps you could explain why national defense is a public good (as I believe you've conceded earlier), but not policing. Clearly, it costs more to defend 10 million people living in 20 far-flung cities than it costs to defend 1 million people living in a single city (or, for that matter, it costs more to defend 10 million people living in one city than it costs to defend 1 million people living in one city).

Sites like this go to extreme lengths to discuss not only the difference in value between a ".270 and a .220 hitter," but the differences between two .270 hitters

Sure, but since we're all intelligent people :) we also acknowledge that you'd have a hard time telling the .270 guy's ability from the .220's even if you watched every game, let alone the two .270s. They are all extreme outliers in terms of world baseball ability, and functionally identical at any level except major-league competition. That's what I'm getting at here. Let's say you've got a few IQ points on me or I've got a few on you. Again, so what. Let's say you've got 20 on me or I've got 20 on you. For the very vast majority of stuff people do, I continue to ask So What?

Looks like someone isn't meeting the right caliber of dumb@ss
Have you met my supervisor?

Let's say you've got a few IQ points on me or I've got a few on you. Again, so what. Let's say you've got 20 on me or I've got 20 on you. For the very vast majority of stuff people do, I continue to ask So What?

The fact that I don't cling bitterly to outdated concepts of "knowledge" that have proven fallible and false in the face of uncertainty somehow makes me "religious" on the matter. You're the one holding madly to articles of faith just because you're uncomfortable with an undefined world.

Nobody thought Asians were particularly brilliant until a small subset of them started excelling in a modern Western culture.

Wait, wat? Chinese intellectual history is pretty impressive, and plenty of Westerners commented to that effect well before the days of H1B visas and Tiger Moms. Japan too.

All true, but the "race" theorists of the 19th and early 20th centuries ignored all that, and their prejudices were reflected in the popular culture. Having a few historians studying Asian history and a few thousand bunco artists quoting Confucius isn't equivalent to any broad acceptance of Asians' intelligence on the part of the overall population, or even on the part of most "educated" people, who were suckers for quack science like phrenology and eugenics.

They live longer healthier lives and with more disposable income to spend on more and better toys

This recurrent meme says literally nothing about the content of how they live their lives and thus remains entirely superficial. An 89-year-old child molester has not lived a better life than an upstanding non-child molester who happens to die at 75.

Sure, but since we're all intelligent people :) we also acknowledge that you'd have a hard time telling the .270 guy's ability from the .220's even if you watched every game, let alone the two .270s. They are all extreme outliers in terms of world baseball ability, and functionally identical at any level except major-league competition. That's what I'm getting at here. Let's say you've got a few IQ points on me or I've got a few on you. Again, so what. Let's say you've got 20 on me or I've got 20 on you. For the very vast majority of stuff people do, I continue to ask So What?

Because we know that, over time, the .270 hitter is going to yield more value than the .220 hitter, even if we can't see the difference with the naked eye on a day-to-day basis.

I'll admit that I'm uncomfortable with some of the possible ramifications of science (possibly) yielding certain truths when it comes to race or IQ, but I don't think that's cause to abort further study.

***

The fact that I don't cling bitterly to outdated concepts of "knowledge" that have proven fallible and false in the face of uncertainty somehow makes me "religious" on the matter. You're the one holding madly to articles of faith just because you're uncomfortable with an undefined world.

I'm "holding madly" to nothing. All I've said is that I'm open to further study of the topic.

Yeah modern UK is so dystopian compared to the good old days. They live longer healthier lives and with more disposable income to spend on more and better toys, but they don't have GLORY to sustain them.

Yeah, but all that's outweighed by the explosion of The Servant Problem.

Clearly, it costs more to defend 10 million people living in 20 far-flung cities than it costs to defend 1 million people living in a single city.

Terrible analogy. It costs the same to provide national defense to the continental US with 200 million people within the borders as it does 300 million people within the borders. Adding a person within the US does not increase the cost, whether it be one new person or 100 million new people. No general says, "well now we have more people, we need another submarine to defend them."*

The defense cost is the same (Well it changes, but not because of the population, rather because of external threats and changes in technology and such). Policing those extra 100 million people does cost more money because the population grew.**

Your example is bad because you are changing two variables, population and geography. College taught me it is usually best to vary only one factor (in this case population), it makes understanding what is going on much easier.

* At least partly because general's typically don't deal with submarines and the navy, that would be admirals.

** Though with the decrease in lead the costs could very well decrease or at least not increase as much as you would think. Thanks environmentalists!

I'm hoping one of Scalia, Thomas or Kennedy retires in the next year or two and replaced with a liberal judge, so we can strat undoing all the damage that has been wroguht the past few years.

It seems to be an unspoken rule these days that Justices retire only under a president of the same party who appointed them. They can die in office too, of course, and that happens more or less randomly. However, the actuarial numbers on Scalia and Kennedy (the two oldest Rs on the Bench) suggest a life expectancy of roughly 10 years.

If Scalia or Kennedy were to die in the next two years, and if the Rs hold the Senate as YC keeps predicting, I'd expect they'll gamble on 2016 and refuse to confirm any replacement. They'll pay a cost for that, of course, but they can't afford to lose the Court -- that and gerrymandering are all they have left.

This recurrent meme says literally nothing about the content of how they live their lives and thus remains entirely superficial. An 89-year-old child molester has not lived a better life than an upstanding non-child molester who happens to die at 75.

Non Sequitur. Unless you are implying something about Victorian versus Modern citizens of the UK and their habits. Are you?

I guess part of what I find "new" about the Supreme Court is that there used to be Justices appointed by one party in the general expectation that they would support that party line, but then in the course of their evolving thought those Justices went, if not 180, at least a substantial tack the opposite way. Seems like anymore, a Justice once appointed is as ideologically stable as a big old rock.

Although some Justices have always been, and continue to be, predictable on some cases, it's also true that the Supreme Court decides a large number of cases by unanimous or near-unanimous votes, and every term has significant cases decided by an alignment other than the most common current 5-4 split by the political party of the appointing President. For example, in search & seizure cases it is not uncommon for Justice Breyer to support the government while Justice Scalia finds a Constitutional violation. Just yesterday there was case, involving statutory interpretation, that had a majority of Kennedy, Ginsburg, Breyer, Alito & Kagan. Most judges, especially Supreme Court Justices, are still something other than "legislators in robes". Most of the time.

we know that, over time, the .270 hitter is going to yield more value than the .220 hitter, even if we can't see the difference

The warrant here though is that such a difference is going to be expressed by a handful of wins over a 162-game season at the highest level of championship play. I don't think that life is an extreme championship event.

Put both guys in a beer league and both they hit close to 1.000 with SLG close to 4. I don't know if life is a beer league either, but I also don't know that IQ is as important to life as (even) batting average is to baseball. And I certainly don't know that IQ is as readily and unproblematically calculated as batting average.

Yeah modern UK is so dystopian compared to the good old days. They live longer healthier lives and with more disposable income to spend on more and better toys, but they don't have GLORY to sustain them. I weep for them.

If you were a normal human instead of a smug #######, you probably would. The UK has a massive, self-perpetuating (white) underclass that lives miserable lives filled with violence, drugs, alcohol, single parenthood and unemployment, largely due to a welfare system that strongly incentivizes them to not seek work. It's a shitty existence and unlike America's minority underclasses, there are very few gentry liberals over there earning holier-than-thou points by attempting to uplift them, no affirmative action programs to help them out.

If there were only 8 justices, wouldn't there be a lot of ties? Does Roberts get to be the tiebreaker?

A tie vote by the Supreme Court upholds the decision of the lower court being appealed from, but doesn't create any binding precedent. Even with a full court, tie votes can occur when a justice is recused and the others are evenly divided.

The UK has a massive, self-perpetuating (white) underclass that lives miserable lives filled with violence, drugs, alcohol, single parenthood and unemployment, largely due to a welfare system that strongly incentivizes them to not seek work.

I will have to tell my UK friends that they suck, are human trash and live miserable lives. I suspect they will nod in sorrowful agreement and sob virtual tears.

And I love being called a horrible human being by the same guy who just a few posts ago called an entire nation "trashy, drunken, violent, promiscuous, unemployable human garbage". Nice.

Terrible analogy. It costs the same to provide national defense to the continental US with 200 million people within the borders as it does 300 million people within the borders. Adding a person within the US does not increase the cost, whether it be one new person or 100 million new people.

You think it costs the same to protect 20 far-flung cities as it does to protect one city? You think it costs the same to protect 200 million people as it does to protect 300 million people?

No general says, "well now we have more people, we need another submarine to defend them."*

Maybe not in the U.S., which currently isn't under serious threat of invasion. But generals who do face such threats most assuredly do request more tanks or guns or missile-defense systems if they're tasked with defending more people and/or more territory.

I know Joe Scarborough can kind of be a know-it-all douche, and I know he's also hardly a movement conservative -- but he pretty much nails it regarding Clive Bundy as just another example of the stupidity of the 'enemy of the my enemy' sort of thinking.

“This has happened before. It happened when conservatives raced blindly to put their arms around George Zimmerman, a man who they didn’t realize who gets in all these troubles," Scarborough said. "Because they basically pick their friends based on who their friends’ ‘enemies’ are. In this case, you have a lot of people in conservative media have raced to this guy’s defense. And they must be feeling very exposed this morning.”

The host of MSNBC's "Morning Joe" blasted conservatives who decided "to go blindly in to champion the cause of someone like this."

"There’s nothing conservative about this man," he said. "This is where nihilism against the federal government as the basis of your ideology gets you in trouble every time."

...of course, I wouldn't trade the inevitable schadenfreude I get to enjoy when the Rick Perry's, the Rand Paul's, the Sean Hannity's, etc inevitably discover the newest and greatest folk hero is actually kind of an idiot.

You think it costs the same to protect 20 far-flung cities as it does to protect one city?

Where did I say that? Which post, which sentence? Because I never said that. In fact I specifically pointed out your analogy was terrible because you were changing two variables, both population and geographic area. I learned in college that was a terrible idea. You want to change one variable at a time. Generally it is a good idea to change the variable you care about, which since we are talking about marginal cost of national defense per person (as opposed to policing per person) I suggest you change population.

But really I have no urgent need to prove to you that national defense is a public good. You asked me about it. I honestly don't care one way or another and if you want to argue National Defense is not a public good have a good time. I only cared about David's original mention that X, Y, and Z were public goods, because he was both wrong and I suspected he was using that (wrong) fact in support of his Libertarianism.

You however can feel free to assign National Defense to the non Public Good category all you like. Not my job to police the whole internet for economic idiocy. (More of a hobby really).

If you really want to know about the subject I suggest reading about it and/or taking a class in it. Many community colleges offer affordable and pretty good intro econ courses. You could ask me for private tutoring I suppose, but my rates are fairly high.

If you were a normal human instead of a smug #######, you probably would. The UK has a massive, self-perpetuating (white) underclass that lives miserable lives filled with violence, drugs, alcohol, single parenthood and unemployment, largely due to a welfare system that strongly incentivizes them to not seek work. It's a shitty existence and unlike America's minority underclasses, there are very few gentry liberals over there earning holier-than-thou points by attempting to uplift them, no affirmative action programs to help them out.

St. George's Day came up recently which offered an opportunity to be reminded of the class divide in England yet again. On facebook I had a few friends comment on being a bit unsettled by the various parades. The contrast between the exclusively white, 40-something working class males of the parades, and the absolute befuddlement if not downright scorn of the mostly middle class grouping of people I befriended while going to grad school and playing baseball there have for the day is a tad alarming. Especially considering, at least in theory, it's a celebration of the patron saint of the nation they share.

Though I do think it's simplifying to say the British had it better in the Victorian era. I was recently listening to a podcast of four historians debating whether Britain should have entered the First World War. One of the talking points was that part of the cost of the war was the weakening of the Empire and the eventual loss of India, among other colonies. While it certainly added to the prestige of the nation, I'm not sure British people today are worse off because they aren't the dominant empire in the world anymore.

Why some folks insist on it being "squeamish" when mostly we are saying, "No, you are flat wrong" is the real question. We are saying that because you are wrong, not because we are squeamish. Say something less wrong and you will find us less "squeamish".

The UK has a massive, self-perpetuating (white) underclass that lives miserable lives filled with violence, drugs, alcohol, single parenthood and unemployment, largely due to a welfare system that strongly incentivizes them to not seek work.

That's hysterical. You sure can live a high on the hog lifestyle on 72 quid a week. Do you read the Daily Mail or something?